Abstract

Quantum quenches in continuum field theory across critical points are known to display different scaling behaviours in different regimes of the quench rate. We extend these results to integrable lattice models such as the transverse field Ising model on a one-dimensional chain and the Kitaev model on a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice using a nonlinear quench protocol which allows for exact analytical solutions of the dynamics. Our quench protocol starts with a finite mass gap at early times and crosses a critical point or a critical region, and we study the behaviour of one point functions of the quenched operator at the critical point or in the critical region as a function of the quench rate. For quench rates slow compared to the initial mass gap, we find the expected Kibble-Zurek scaling. In contrast, for rates fast compared to the mass gap, but slow compared to the inverse lattice spacing, we find scaling behaviour similar to smooth fast continuum quenches. For quench rates of the same order of the lattice scale, the one point function saturates as a function of the rate, approaching the results of an abrupt quench. The presence of an extended critical surface in the Kitaev model leads to a variety of scaling exponents depending on the starting point and on the time where the operator is measured. We discuss the role of the amplitude of the quench in determining the extent of the slow (Kibble-Zurek) and fast quench regimes, and the onset of the saturation.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-24-2017

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Journal of High Energy Physics, v. 2017, issue 11, article no. 157, p. 1-48.

© The Author(s) 2017

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP11(2017)157

Funding Information

Article funded by SCOAP3. The work of DD is partially supported by DOE contract DE-SC-0009919. The work of SRD is partially supported by the National Science Foundation grant NSF-PHY-1521045. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported by the Government of Canada through the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Research & Innovation. RCM and DAG were also supported by an NSERC Discovery grant. RCM is also supported by research funding from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and from the Simons Foundation through “It from Qubit” Collaboration. DAG is supported by Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) via a Vidi grant. The work of DAG is part of the Delta ITP consortium, a program of the NWO that is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW).

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